Soda Pop - 1421 Reviews

When you see a beverage that is called Fire, you expect some heat behind it. The first thought in my head was that this was going to be Pepsi with capsaicin (aka what makes peppers burn your guts). Half of a second of reading told me that it was really just Pepsi with cinnamon in it. Why the masochist in me was hoping for a drink that would cause me to sweat and leak tears everywhere, I was actually intrigued by the idea of cinnamon cola. I mean sure, I'd rather have the option to have a drink on hand that I could use to play pranks on friends and watch their mouths burn off, but I mean I guess I'll take this.

To be honest, as I took my first sip, I thought that it really didn't taste all that different from regular Pepsi and I thought I had bought myself a one way ticket to bummer city. Then the after taste kicked in. Oh what a wonderful aftertaste it is. It's all cinnamon and spice and even a little heat. I can thankfully say that the soda lived up to its name.
With subsequent sips I learned that if you swished it around your mouth a bit, it opened up the flavor of the cinnamon. It makes you feel like a wine aficionado, except without all of the…€¦you know…€¦.taste of rot and decay.
I surprisingly really enjoyed this. I do have to mention that after drinking an entire bottle over about a half hour I did get quite the stomach ache and by ache I mean burn. I guess it really does meet its nomenclature. I would also like to point out that if this would have been part of the 1893 line and made with that base, it would have been through the roof fantastic. I'm talking like life changing good.

Orange and mango are good buds. They're arguably both orange. That lumps them into that category. Really, that's it. They're also just a good pair. This tastes more like orange juice than a 50/50 split. I'd happily give it 75/25 if we're going to put numbers on it.

This was given to my mammy as a way to promote the product. Well, they didn't know who her son was. Most people don't. I am but a man. A sexy, attractive, talented, man of a man. A man who decided to spend the last seven years writing crud about drinks. This being one of them. What do I have to say about it? It's good. Simple as that. Personally I like the other Izze drinks because they're lighter and simpler. This is...not thicker...but denser. It's a sparkling juice. They call it like a sparkling soda, water and juice simultaneously and it is all of them and it is one of them. Is it confusing? No. You know why? Who is going to fight over what this is. Whatever it is, it's sparkling and fruity and drinkable. Don't put baby in the corner. Just drink it.

I have never had an Irish Cream before. In fact I wasn't quite sure what it was. I assumed it was some sort of creamy liquor that people put into coffee, hence the saying “Irish up your coffee.” Look at me putting the obvious dots together. Turns out I was correct. One thing I do know in the world of Irish Cream is Baileys and the reason I actually know anything about Baileys is the Old Greg sketch from Mighty Boosh. It's the best thing the show ever created and it includes some fine art based on Baileys.

With all that said, this tastes pretty much how I would have expected it to. It's a cream soda with the tiniest hint of coffee in it. It's quite delicious and I'm enjoying it way more than I had anticipated. The coffee is there enough to make you notice it but it's subtle enough so that it is still primarily a cream soda and not just a coffee pop.

Germany may have Club Mate, but Canada now has Matero. Both are yerba mate sodas and both are phenomenal. I really wish I had a Club Mate here so I could do a side by side taste test. In my memory this tastes extremely similar, but I want to say that Matero may be a bit better. Mainly because I think it tastes a little less sweet. I love every sip of this. I'm well aware that this isn't for everyone. In fact, I think a majority of the population would turn their nose up at this, but those people are fools. Just because something isn't like a “normal” soda doesn't make it bad. I would definitely rather drink this over most sodas. It's just carbonated yerba mate tea with a little cane sugar in it. It packs a nice punch caffeine-wise and it's all done naturally. In my dreams this company will trickle down over the border and take over drink coolers everywhere. I may have to go across an ocean to get Club Mate, but I just need to cross a border 15 minutes away to enter Canada to get more of these.

They cannot fail. The Pepsi-Cola company simply cannot fail with their 1893 line. The other flavors had me very excited, but I was skeptical about the black currant. We had a currant bush in my backyard growing up, and I enjoyed eating them, but I generally find their tartness rarely takes me where I want it to in beverage form. It is really great in this cola though. More than any other flavor in this line this reminds me of a cherry cola with a twist. I always think of currants as a form of grape, even though I know they are berries. I don't know if it's that thought process or an actuality, but this kind of tastes like a mixture of cherry/grape cola. I really enjoy it so much more than I ever would have anticipated. I wondered if they were going to release a cherry version of this, and now I think it's unnecessary. This fills that void and does it in a unique and enjoyable way.

For how little I care about the Pepsi-Cola company, I really love their 1893 line. I'm talking probably 8 out of the last 10 sodas I have bought for pleasure have been them. That's probably spaced out over the past six months, but those are some pretty good numbers. While I find their regular, every day cola pretty boring and uninspiring this stuff is just great. It is dark. It is bold. If I had reviewed the original instead of Mike it would have gotten top marks. It is everything I could have ever wanted out of a cola.

Now they have gone and twisted things up a bit with this citrus flavor. When I heard this was going be released I thought it was going to be lemon or lime (perhaps a combo of the two), or possibly orange, which would have been fantastic. I never would have anticipated that the citrus fruit they used was going to be grapefruit. It was a bold move and I think it really pays off. While I do prefer the original, this is something unlike anything I have ever had before and it is really great. The thing is that it is like two sodas mixed into one. I don't know how they have kept the flavors separate, but that's how it goes down. When it's in your mouth and initially after you swallow it tastes like a fantastic grapefruit soda. Very quickly that fades and the 1893 cola taste replaces it.

At first I was unsure what to think about this. It most definitely was unusual. It took about half the can before I realized that I really loved it. I've generally moves away from sugary beverages in my older age. They tend to make me feel a little bit like garbage and they always seem to have too much sugar. This tastes incredibly sugary sweet, but it works in here. I find myself savoring the sweetness like I normally wouldn't in other sodas. When this line first came out I was sure that it would disappear from shelves within a few months. With the release of two new flavors it seems that it is here to stay and I'm excited to see where else they take it.

I know what you're thinking. Do you think I didn't think it? I'm going to guess that the majority of people whose eyes scan this bottle are thinking the same thing, “Do the snozzberries taste like snozzberries?” I'm going to go out on a limb and say yes. I have no idea what a snozzberry actually is, but after tasting this soda I will say that yes this should be the definitive definition for the fictional fruit. Unless you are talking about the crude joke that Roald Dahl actually meant by the word, then I will say no, this probably does not taste like that.

The is a little known fact that I hum/sing two bars of the Wonka song all the damn time, but no one ever realizes it. I normally don't even know I'm doing it until I reach the end of the second bar. It's a good melody, and this is an exceptional soda. I'm not exactly sure what berries they have combined to make this new variety, but gun to head I would say boysenberry and raspberry. It's extremely good, and that is hard for a fruit flavored soda to achieve. I bet if they opened up a Wonka amusement park (far from timely) this would be a huge seller at the gift shop and they would never get a single complaint about it. Even bitter folks, who are dead inside would love it. I mean I did.

Hey, sir! I see you over there drinking your can of Squirt! You listen to me mister! You throw that can right in the trash. It no longer deserves your time. I'm sorry if I came across angry, but I guess it does anger me to watch people drink inferior soda when the quality stuff is available. Here, have a can of this Alta Palla. Now tell me person who I just met, who I will now call friend, is that or is it not the best can of grapefruit soda that has ever passed your lips? It's sweet, but still has the appropriate amount of bitterness. It tastes like dumping spoonfuls of sugar directly onto a grapefruit that has been cut in two. Part of me wishes there was a little less sugar in here, but then I think about how good as it tastes as it, and I'll deal with the extra calories. Now, get back to work! You don't get paid to talk to obviously crazy strangers on the sidewalk!

Can we take a moment out of our regularly scheduled beverage nonsense to discuss how Whole Foods has gone completely downhill? We don't have them here in Buffalo, but I've visited their stores a decent amount while I'm traveling. While I was never completely onboard with it, mostly due to the price, they were always a mecca of vegetarian prepared foods. I could walk up to the hot bar and have a selection of various delicious meals. While out on the west coast last month I stopped by two separate stores and it was dismal. The prepared foods sections were scaled back a lot more than I remember and other than salad stuff, there really weren't any veggie options other than lasagna. Both times I ended up getting soft pretzels and calling it a day. Of course they are finally opening one in my hometown and it will be essentially useless to me. Without the options what reason do I have to go there over the superior Wegmans, which is way cheaper? Oh yes, it is because of the beverage selection. There is always something new to me in the drink cooler at Whole Foods. This time around it was Alta Palla.

I grabbed this thinking it was a blood orange seltzer water (because it said sparkling). I cracked it open while I ate my pretzel and was nicely surprised to discover it was actually sweetened, but not ridiculously so. During my trip I was doing a lot of hiking, which led to me drinking a lot of water, and eating a whole lot of protein bars and eating trail mix a whole bunch. I didn't realize how much my body wanted this sugar until I drank this. It has an incredible blood orange flavor and it is in the same realm as San Pellegrino, only better. All I can say is that when that Whole Foods opens its doors in Buffalo they better have this in stock, because I want it and I want a lot of it.

Am I wrong in thinking that jamaica and hibiscus are the same thing (also sorrel)? I'm pretty sure they are the same. I would look it up, but I'm in Mexico and I don't have internet access. So I will assume they are one and the same. I'm not positive what nada is, but I think it's the same fruit as I bought from some cart earlier with chili powder and lime. At least that's what I think the vender said. My Spanish is minimal and a lot of people talk very fast down here. I digress; this is sparkling mineral water with juice added. It's fairly sweet and floral. I like it, but it was a bit much to get through the whole bottle. I kind of wish I had went with the lime instead. All I really want to consume down here involves limes. This has been a fairly uninformative review, but it's what you're going to get, because I don't know what else to say about it.

Ahh ginger beer. Always a welcome guest in my house. Gosling's, Goya and now Trader Joe's. Sure, there are other ones. What? Do you want me to make a list? Well it's not going to happen. Alright, fine. Here. Happy?

This is good. It's sweet. I could put this in the category of "entry level" since it's not going to burn the skin off your mouth. Tame. Could you give it to kids? Sure if the kids you are giving it to aren't wimps and if their parents aren't around. If I saw you giving my kids pop, I might say something. If I saw you giving my kids ginger beer, I might say something after I saw the look on their dumb, wimp faces as their tiny, young mouths are on fire.

This is sweeter than I like my ginger beer but makes up for in earthy, ginger flavor. It's like losing a game only to come up a couple points short in the fourth quarter. Everything was against you and you are still going home a loser just not as much of a loser.

Companies have been flavoring their colas with various things for decades and we no longer bat an eye at cherry, vanilla, or even lime cola, this may be the first berry cola I've come across. More than likely I have and it's slipped my brain. I mean I do get dumber by the day and find myself forgetting normal words I use all the time. I will choose to believe that my brain is not malfunctioning this time and say that it is my first cola of this variety. I have to say, I'm into it. I do wish it had a stronger cola flavor, but what is there pairs great with the berry. It's similar to a cherry cola, but with a little twist. Is it better? I can't say. It is different though and that makes it stand out to me, and that is a hard thing to do these days.

While this isn't what I think of when I think of seltzer (They are right. I am wrong.), this still has possibly the smallest ingredients list I have come across for a soda. It's simply carbonated water, cane sugar, citrus acid, and natural flavors. It's simple, it's clean and it's delicious.

This tastes better than it smells. It smells like...listen...I'll be honest with you. I haven't always been straight edge. Back in the late 90's, it was a difficult time for everyone. I snuck, a bottle of red wine out of my parent's basement over to my friend's and we hid it in the drop ceiling and took sips of it. It was disgusting then. Two, maybe three baby sips. Tops. This smelled like that but sweeter.

How did it taste? Not that much better but good enough that I drank a fair amount of this bottle. It tastes like the fruity part of wine mixed in with a can of Pepsi. It had a bit of a burn to it which was probably from "Christmas spices." It did taste like it could have been alcoholic. It wasn't but if you pulled the wool over my eyes and told me a week later, I wouldn't call you a liar. I'd call you a jerk and probably puke on your car, but I would have had my hunches the entire time.

I'm complained on here, a stupid amount of times, that companies should just lower the amount of sugar they use instead of using zero calorie sweeteners. Sure, they save you calories, but it's at the cost of the taste of the beverage. Dry does exactly what I have suggested. To be fair they have been doing it since before I vocalized my thoughts. This can of soda has less than half the sugar that a “normal” soda would. For a lot of their flavors this practice really works wonderfully. Unfortunately this one just does not taste right to me. There is a natural sweetness in cherries, and it's lost in tis translation. It's one of the few soda flavors that I like being really sweet. Actually a middle ground would be perfect. This tastes more like actual cherries than most sodas, but I could use more of the sweetness from a typical cherry pop. Taking all of that into consideration if I had a six pack of these I'm pretty sure by the end I would become acclimated with it and would have no issues once my brain/taste buds adjusted.

This soda falls under the category of so obvious that we missed it all of this time. How has the whole of humanity existed for so long without someone saying, “Hey let's mix grapefruit with cream soda?” Even as I type that out it seems strange, but how many of us love the combination of orange and vanilla? The creamsicle taste is a standard. If one citrus fruit can provide such great results, why have we never tried another? Well, that is until now.

This is a knock your socks off flavor. It's so familiar, with just enough of a twist that makes you truly appreciate each sip. The base is a fantastic cream soda that would get rave reviews on its own. Adding the grapefruit is just icing on the cake. It's not overly sour, but it is certainly different than an orange cream. Actually, after tasting this I don't know if I see a need for orange cream to exist anymore, at least not in the spotlight. This should be the go to flavor.

I'm not sure what the “Hopped” is all about, as I don't taste anything other than the cream and grapefruit in here. That's fine. I didn't want anything else anyways. This is perfection.

Private Selection is Kroger Grocery Stores line of craft sodas. I personally am fine with them keeping this particular flavor private. It has all the makings for a great olde timey soda that doesn't taste like a Coke or Pepsi, but then there is that bourbon flavor in there. I assume that's what the flavor is, since I've never tasted bourbon before. It's the thing in there that makes this taste quasi alcoholic. I don't think it's psychosomatic because I was not expecting that at all. I was expecting a dark bold cola that is made with kola nut. Sure, that is there, but there's also the extra flavor that just turns me off from it. Without it I would have savored this soda and enjoyed the hell out of it. As it stands I can't get past half of it. I'm sure for someone who enjoys alcohol they wouldn't notice it as much as I do (the same way they say kombucha doesn't taste like all of the left over half drunk beers at a party mixed together a week later). This is for someone. Someone is going to love this. I am not that someone.

Is this the long lost Arnold Palmer pop? Kind of. In its most core sense it is until you realize that some time and love went into crafting this syrup. Taken directly from their website:

Bold, black tea from India the Nilgiri Blue Mountains of India blended with lemongrass and lemon myrtle

That's not messing around, man. That's not some garbage, every day black tea and some lemon squeezed over a cinder block into a cup. This is real. You can taste that it's different, too. This is not me being a snob, you actually can taste that it's different. It's not "just" anything.

You want to impress someone who likes to drink Half and Half, you buy them a bottle of this. Sure, they've got to have seltzer on hand but it's a small price to pay for such a quality drink.

As soon as I looked at the ingredient list I instantly had questions about this product. I'm familiar with Sugar in the Raw, and it is raw Turbinado sugar. I was excited to try a cola made with it, but a quick look also told me that stevia leaf was also used as a sweetener in this bottle. You may find yourself asking the same question as I was, Why in the world is a company whose only product is raw sugar using an additional sweetener in their soda? The answer is actually simple, they have expanded their company and the name is now just In the Raw. They now sell a whole line of alternative sweeteners that are also all “raw.”

I appreciate that they have extended their line and are trying to keep people healthier by using a combination of the two sweeteners to keep the calories down, but I really, really wanted this to just be sweetened with their flagship product. This would be great in a pure form, but stevia does what stevia wants to do and this has that specific taste to it. It's not horrible, but it's just not what I want in a cola. I'm not a fan of diet and I would always prefer less real sugar to anything artificial or stevia based. The cola taste in here is great. It's dark and slightly earthy, just the way I like it. Unfortunately it gets lost a bit in the stevia. The high cost of diet.

Sometimes Fiz hits the mark and sometimes it doesn't. If this soda were thrown at a dart board it would have stuck in someone around the outer edge, not gaining you any points. Hey, at least it didn't put holes in the wall though.

This is simply boring. The orange flavor takes a back seat to a generic sugar soda flavor. If the percentage of orange flavoring was increased maybe this would have been decent. As it is I would more than likely politely decline if someone offered me a bottle. Yes, even if it were being served with hot dogs.

If you're looking for a natural tasting beverage this is certainly for you. I don't know what this has to do with a dragon, dancing or not, but what I do know is that it tastes like someone made a soda out of throat coat tea and it's a little much. I like sips of this drink. I've been nursing the glass I made for the past 45 minutes. If I take tiny sips it's enjoyable, but if I drink too much at once it becomes a bit too overpowering and medicinal. If you're not familiar with throat coat (which is absolutely wonderful hot) imagine chewing on a licorice stick (the plant not the candy) while drinking some black tea. It's pleasant and helps your throat. It's not quite the same in soda form but it is a re-imagining of a classic soda.
In here the tea is a mixture of pu-erh (fermented tea)and yerba mate. The rest of the flavor comes from a combination of sarsaparilla root and honeybush. It kind of tastes the way a natural market smells. Take that as you will. To me it's not bad thing, but it certainly is unique. Out of all of these tea sodas, this is the one that is certainly not for everyone.